The Music, Arts and Drama (MAD) program will return to the Wood Street Centre on Monday after a semester of advocacy from students.

“Like most, I’m overjoyed,” Michael Gwynne-Thompson told the Star Thursday afternoon.

“It’s really great to be heading back to our home, and there’s been quite a lot of us fighting for it over the past couple months, and it’s really great that it’s come true.”

Gwynne-Thompson was one of several MAD students who spoke against the program’s move to Porter Creek Secondary for this school year.

The program was moved out of Wood Street Centre and into the public high school to enable safe spacing. Grade 8 students were moved into the Wood Street Centre.

During a press conference held Tuesday, Education Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee explained that the Grade 8 students haven’t used Wood Street Centre’s black box theatre to full capacity, making the space available for MAD students to return.

The Grade 8 students will still attend classes at Wood Street Centre, while the MAD students will occupy the theatre.

This means MAD students will lose the main classroom and prop assembly room they used at Wood Street Centre previously.

Gwynne-Thompson said the loss of those rooms is a welcome trade for returning to Wood Street.

“The learning has always been very flexible, so I’m sure sitting in the (theatre) and doing English will be no different than in a classroom,” Gwynne-Thompson said.

The student added that he is “delighted” the program will be returning to Wood Street so soon after the Education minister announced the shift.

“It’s incredible,” Gwynne-Thompson said.

MAD was beginning to plan for its year-end show, and students were hunting for a host theatre. Now that the program is returning to Wood Street, the performance will most likely take place there, Gwynne-Thompson said.

Porter Creek Secondary was decried by students and parents this fall for being an inappropriate location for the MAD program.

The classroom was small, school bells disruptive and theatre time inadequate. MAD kids were also bullied by some members of the greater school population, students said.

The discontent among students culminated in a petition filed to the Yukon legislature last month, with hundreds of signatures on paper and online.

“If you take a program that’s already super-unique, and you develop it in one space over a span of nearly 30 years, it becomes incredibly difficult to move the space of that program and see similar results,” Gwynne-Thompson said.

“It was just putting a great thing in a not-so-great spot, which was really unfortunate.”

Gwynne-Thompson said he’s spoken to McPhee, and that he regrets the “hostility” between MAD students and the Education department.

“Between all the ups-and-downs, they’ve followed through and put us back in our home,” Gwynne-Thompson said.

“They’re trying to do their best for the programs, and I think there’s been too much aggression toward the department.”